Umbral Echoes Blog

It’s been a while since I’ve bought this little gadget, and I realized that my review has been sitting in “draft” status for months, so… here you go!

The good:

• It came pre-charged and pre-registered to me. I didn’t even have to enter my Amazon info; I just started it up, it downloaded a software update, and I started using it after a brief tutorial.
• The size is pretty nice, and it’s good to be able to hold the device with one hand. It doesn’t quite fit in a standard pocket, but it does fit into the side pocket on my cargo pants, and in the inner pocket of my suit.
• The PDF reader flipped pages pretty fast.
• Notifications system is pretty neat — just a little number up top which you can click on. Uses this for downloads too; at first this confused me because I downloaded a PDF, and didn’t know when it was done or what to do.
• $200! Quite a good price point. The biggest selling point.

The Bad:

• No 3G option, so you’ve gotta be near WiFi to use the cloud services (and most things with it are stored on the cloud).
• Seems a little laggy.  Not annoyingly so… but on the edge of annoying.  Animations aren’t smooth, but they are noticeably choppy. I’ve heard that other Android tablets tend to be even worse though.
• No physical home button. Not only am I used to this with other devices, it makes it harder to quickly figure out which side is up and which is down.
• The PDF reader is sub-par.  For example, it doesn’t support bookmarks (as in, ones that the publisher added), nor does it allow you to have multiple files open at once. I really hope a version of GoodReader comes out for Android. Tried Adobe’s reader, which does support bookmarks, but it’s pretty slow in initial rendering of pages, and also doesn’t support multiple files open at once.
• The back button seemed a little glitchy — most times I had to tap it twice to get it to work. I’m sure this will be fixed in a future update though.
• It was very hard to tap on an app/document in the “coverflow” view. I had to try 4 times to open the document I wanted.  Even now after I kind of have the hang of it, it takes 2-3 careful taps.

Overall

It’s a neat little gadget, but not nearly as great for general use as an iPad, and not nearly as good for reading as an e-ink reader like the Kindle Touch. The only real use I could see for it is for people doing LARPs who need something that can fit in a large pocket as a rules reference. If you want a tablet device and you’re on a budget, it’s a livable alternative to an iPad.